Tag Archives: Prague

Pit stop

Posted on by
Reply

I spent a long time at the Little Café Near Home today, and as I result I am more than just a little wired on caffeine. Even at one tea per hour, you stack up enough hours and things get a bit on the twitchy side. It seemed like a beer was called for, but I was done with that place. I bought some water and some wine to go and turned my toes toward home.

I didn’t get far. One street up from Little Café Near Home is the Budvar bar even closer to home. On Tuesdays all the staff wear shirts, so I figured conditions would be tolerable. (“Conditions”, in this case, meaning air, and “tolerable” meaning breathable.) I stopped in and grabbed myself a desitku.

It seems that Tuesday night is card night. There are a couple of games going, and fortunately for me people are too busy playing cards to smoke. There are however, several very, very drunk people here. Walking is a dicey proposition for some of these folks, which means the delay the stroll to the relief station as long as possible. I have now witnessed two distressed marches across the room, picking up speed as they go, the pilgrim leaning progressively farther forward and hoping his feet will somehow stay underneath. It is a terrible race, feet handicapped, bladder insistent, and there can be no true winner.

On the TV there is a documentary of some sort. It’s about a festival, and large women in peasant garb have formed a disassembly line to render chickens into chicken parts. Cleavers are flying and you do not want to reach for the wrong bird.

The chemicals, it’s the chemicals. I forgot to post this when I got home. Here it is, (marginally) better late than never.

Thanks!

My Beers With Angel

Posted on by
4

I first met Angel at the Little Café near home a few weeks ago. I was worried at the time that if he came in regularly it would be difficult to get any work done. If he is in the room, you know it. He is an energetic soul, and it is only with the greatest effort that he can leave me to work, when he is bursting with stories and ideas. He is able to keep that effort level required for restraint for perhaps thirty seconds before the pressure of all the ideas bottled up inside him pops his safety valve.

Tonight we met at the Little Café by agreement, so I had no expectations of writing. Tonight was for talking.

Angel is by any measure a good guy. He is sharp, no doubt about it — not only does he understand quite a few languages, he understands language. At one time he worked at a university in Peru, and gave most of his salary back to the university because, for him, there is nothing more important than education. Angel is an idealist and a shameless Christian.

I chose the word ‘shameless’ very carefully. Angel is not ashamed to be Christian, nor would he ever try to make anyone else ashamed for not being Christian. He believes in a higher authority is all. He is a philosopher, a lecturer, and a teacher. Much of what he says, I don’t completely agree with, but that’s OK. Part of that is that we agree that when people stop and listen to each other we can get along, even if we don’t agree.

Tonight over beers he said, “You can say ‘murder is bad’ and I will ask ‘why? Where is the authority that says so?’ He’s not arguing in favor of murder, he’s saying there is a reason murder is bad, and that the reason is bigger than humanity. Personally I don’t see the need for a higher authority, but that just made the conversation more interesting. It’s surprisingly hard to find people who are both passionate in their beliefs and tolerant of others.

In the last few days I’ve had fairly intense conversations with Greabeard and with Angel. In both cases part of the discussion is a search for a mutual definition of terms — making sure we’re using the same word in the same way. With Angel the process was much more rewarding. You can posit that this is the difference between argument and debate, but on that point I would have to disagree.

The reason I met up with Angel tonight is because he needs a place to crash for a few days until his new apartment is ready. This will be interesting indeed. My place looks like I’m still moving in (in a sense I am moving back into the room where Soup Boy slept), and there is overall a sense of disorder. I am, in my own small way, entropy’s little helper*. More than that, there will be a very large presence in my sanctuary for a few days. His need for a place is part of a large, complicated fur-ball of events that are his story to tell, not mine, but even being an uninformed bystander has been educational.

*On the entropy bit, it is important to remember that every time you achieve order you must expend enough energy to create more disorder somewhere else. By not moving the stack of boxes out of my living room, I am delaying the heat death of the universe. You don’t have to thank me, it’s what I do.

Thanks!

A night of beautiful stuff

Posted on by
1

It is five minutes until five, Central European time. The sky is still dark, and the streets are quiet. I’ve been walking for the last hour or so, making my way home from a bar called Tulip. I’m not sure how much of the story I will tell, not because of any salacious or embarrassing details, but because it’s the same story all over again.

… and that’s as far as I got writing the episode before I called it a night last night.

Anyway, Little John invited me to join him at his favorite haunt last night, and I accepted because it had been a while since I left the domicile. A friend of his was singing and playing at Tulip, and they serve a particularly good flavor of beer, so it was a promising evening. I arrived to find Little John there with some of his friends, and we were joined as well by fuego and MaK. By the time Mad Dog (he will not be a regular character here, and how he earned his nickname is Little John’s story and not mine, but by Mad Dog he shall always be known here) joined us, I had already built one minor stack. In marked contrast to the last time I was stacking objects in a bar, this time those at the table were fully supportive. When I started wedging coasters into notches in the salt and pepper caddy, the others at the table began to collect items for me to use. I got a couple of interesting stacks, but nothing spectacular. fuego has pics of my early-evening efforts, so maybe I’ll be able to put one up here.

The music was good, the beer was good, and all was well with the world. Singing along was not just tolerated but encouraged (at least by Little John), and I did some of that as well. Later on a rather astonishingly beautiful woman joined us from the next table over, and cuddled up with one of Little John’s friends. It turns out she’s American, and has moved here to teach at an international school. She’s been here a week. She was very happy with her sparkly shoes, and she wants to be a writer. We talked for quite a while. Somewhere along the way a different musician took over, and his mellower style fit with the advancing hour.

And that, really, is it. Rather sad to think that is the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in the last few days, but any evening that includes stacking things with no resulting disasters and talking to a pretty girl is right up there on the “pleasant evening” scale.

Thanks!

Quite a day here at the bowling alley

Posted on by
1

I was instructed by the benefactor mentioned in the previous post to spend his largesse on beer. This is a mandate I take seriously, and, since if I spent the whole lump on beer I’d be besotted indeed, I decided that some of the lovely lucre could go for pizza and I’d still be within the spirit of his request. There’ll still be some left over, even so.

To Bowle & Bowling, then! It is quiet in my neighborhood, and the short walk was a pleasant one. I entered the bowling alley and the first thing I thought was, “wow! there are a lot of pretty women here today!” And there were. I made my way inside and the next thing I thought was, “wow! It’s loud in here today!” down below on the lanes there is a horde of kids, forty or more on the six lanes, roiling in noisy confusion, bowling occasionally. It is a party. One of the big tables up where I am has a spread of food and a birthday cake, and the women are chatting with one another, sipping cokes, and occasionally looking down to determine whose kid it is shouting this time.

This place is, I realize, ideally suited for this sort of party. There is bowling, there is pizza, and parents can watch the kids discretely while staying literally above the fray.

It’s not so good for writing, however. I could handle any two of the noise, the hivelike activity below, and the milling of the pretty women, but all three is just too much. And now, a beeper is beeping. An alarm of some sort, with that shrill icepick-in-the-brain tone. Nobody seems to notice. It is time, I think, for the Budvar bar. Most likely I’ll be the only one in there on a Sunday evening.

Thanks!

An unusually ordinary day

Posted on by
5

I’m not a shopper. I’m especially not a big-store shopper. It’s not so much that I consciously avoid the giant department stores, I just don’t like lugging the booty home with me when there are neighborhood stores I would walk past on my way. I’ve been in a couple of the big department stores around here, but always as a spectator. Today, it was time. I needed a few things that the local stores don’t seem to carry (emphasis on ‘seem’), and I’ve lived in my apartment long enough that it’s time I went out and got those little things that make a house a home. A year and a half is long enough without a can opener. If I waited any longer people might accuse me of procrastinating.

I hadn’t realized it until I saw a billboard, but one metro stop away from me is one of the giant department stores. It is in the direction away from the city, and in my time here I had never gone past my stop. So on the one hand all I did was hop on the metro to go shopping at a giant store. On the other hand I went to a new place to shop at a store I’d never been to before.

It was entirely like every other giant department store on the planet, with just a couple of exceptions. The goods were arranged with czech sensibilites, matching the way smaller stores categorize themselves. For instance, every shopping district in Prague has a store that sells electric things. If you want something that runs off electricity, for whatever purpose, you go to the electric thing store. Perfectly sensible. I found my beard trimmer between the digital cameras and the microwave ovens. Because it’s electric. Once I walked through the store once, I had no trouble finding anything I needed.

I now have knives that cut, a nice stainless-steel frying pan, a can opener, and a hair trimmer (not one of those pathetic pieces of junk they sell as beard trimmers). Five more years and I’ll be moved in!

Thanks!

Bar 149 is a good one

Posted on by
12

I wasn’t in the mood to experiment today. I spent the last two days coding and I just wanted to sit in a cool, familiar place, and get some work done. U Kormidla is just the ticket for that. It is a quiet place, not smoky, and cool on a hot summer day. I pointed my feet down the hill, already planning what I would order. Alas, on the door was a sign with the new hours — hours which did not include the one I was standing in. U Slamu was right next door, but was hot and smoky. There were a couple other places open, but they didn’t serve food. I was thwarted. Lost, adrift, I wandered the neighborhood, looking for the right place to sit and work.

It’s just too damn bright outside to work today, even in the shade my screen just can’t compete. I did a big loop of the neighborhood to no avail, so I decided to head for another neighborhood.

To be honest, I’m not sure what it was that stopped me from getting on the metro. I went down into the station, the train came and left and I didn’t get on. I resurfaced and decided to walk through the park across from the metro station, venturing into unexplored territory. I wandered the paths, my quest temporarily on hold as I surveyed the local scuptures — rocks standing on end. There was nothing handy to balance on them, which was a pity. At the far corner was a small hill, I stood there for a bit, and as I was turning to go back the way I had come I spied a Staropramen banner half a block farther on. What the heck.

Right next to the Staropramen bar is the one in which I now sit. It is right nice. The Guinness sign caught my eye first, then the food specials posted outside. Even so, I almost didn’t come in. Finally I gave myself a little push and in I came.

If U Kormidla (The Helm) has a nautical theme, this place turns it up to 11. Everything is dark wood, and a cieling fan turns lazily, casting shadows in the low light. There is an impressive aquarium embedded in the wall behind my head, and a hodgepodge of kitch in a generally nautical theme. Out of place but welcome is the large electric fan by the door. The only other patron in this room just spent a moment dancing in front of it.

The waitress/bartender is pretty, with an easy smile, and she brings me beer and food. It’s the perfect relationship (although even as I typed that she said “Ahoj” (rhymes with Ahoy) and left). Still, if any place can pull my brain from the land of logic and into the vast uncharted waters of creativity, this is it.

Thanks!

A troubling sign

Posted on by
26

This may not be news to locals, but I don’t think they understand the true import of the event. TGIFriday’s has arrived in Prague. Sure, McDonald’s has been here for a while now, as has KFC, and I assume there’s a Hard Rock Café around here somewhere. (Note to self: If there isn’t, make a deal with a bootlegger at a flea market to buy up a bunch of fake Hard Rock Prague t-shirts and flog them in Old Town Square.)

If McD’s and The Colonel are the cavalry, the vanguard of capitalism sent to root out the native businesses and push them into the locations no one wants, TGIFriday’s and the others sure to follow represent the next wave. They are the settlers. Moving into areas firmly established by those that came before, they will gradually push the boundaries, creating expanding zones of Urban Interchangeable, where local businesses will have the choice to play the game or move out.

TGIFriday’s will succeed here, no doubt about it. A few other restaurants in town have good burgers, but they don’t have a continent-leaping marketing machine. Now there is a place in town that every American will associate with a higher grade of burger than the fast-food places. They will go. The locals will follow. Why? Because burgers are good. Better burgers are better. I have no idea what the replaced business was selling. That in itself is telling, because I walked past the place regularly. Oh, the power of a name.

I may not know what the previous establishment sold, but it wasn’t burgers. It was different. Maybe not better, but different.

Thanks!

Be’er, now.

Posted on by
1

As I write this I am sitting under a large umbrella, listening to the rain patter against the fabric. We are in a park; from where I sit I see only trees and slightly dilapidated picnic tables. It’s not raining hard — at least not yet — and it’s nice out here. If the deluge comes, we will move into the big tent. There is a pretty girl whose job it is to bring me beers.

This is summer in Prague. It is the way life should be, they way it is in longing stories of exotic places. The palapa on the deserted beach in Baja California, the tree house bar in the jungle. Beer is always just a little more civilized when consumed outdoors. This is why I want a transequatorial lifestyle, so that wherever the beers are served with a side order of fresh air, borne to me by pretty girls in miniskirts, that’s where I’ll be.

True to a theme we’ve explored here recently, I am already shuddering as I think of the coming Prague winter. I just want to stay right here, just like this. But even if I stayed still, the world would continue to move, leaving me behind, floating in space on the Sirius side of the sun. Overall, not a good solution.

Thanks!

The Wiener Dogs of Terrible Town

Posted on by
5

People joke about the name of my neighborhood: strašný means “horrible” or “terrible”, so Strašnice could be interpreted to mean “Terrible Place”. Marketing was slow to catch on here.

It’s a quiet neighborhood, even at the busiest of times. The sounds that come in through my open windows are the songs of birds and the occasional distant rumble of a tram. Today was a holiday, so I was not at all surprised to find the streets deserted when I left my flat. I moseyed up the street, and saw no one. I heard no sound of automobiles. After a couple of blocks it was starting to feel a little spooky, but when I walked through the little park on my way down to the tram stop it was eerily quiet. There were no drunks on the benches, no kids in the play lot, and, most frightening of all, there were no old men with wiener dogs.

Those who have been hanging around this blog for a while know that wiener dogs and the old men who walk them are a fixture in this neighborhood.

I was alone, Strašnice was abandoned, leaving only me and the ghosts. Perhaps the last thing my landlord had said, (which I pretended to understand but didn’t) was that all living souls were to evacuate the neighborhood today. I paused in the park and contemplated the true source of my neighborhood’s name. Strašit means “to haunt”. In recognition of the sprawling graveyards that define this part of town, my neighborhood is called “Haunted Place”. I live in Ghost Town and today, it seems, is the ghosts’ day to play. All others are gone — the wiener dogs have been packed up with their old men and shipped off to the countryside, the drunks have braved the trams to find a part of town where the beer stores are open on holidays.

Perhaps on other days, when the wiener dogs rule, you could think of Strašnice as Terrible Town. But when even the wiener dogs know better the city’s true nature is revealed. If I knew how, perhaps I could see out the corner of my eye the shades of those who had gone before, the ghosts of old men long forgotten and their forgotten long dogs.

1

Thanks!

It’s not the heat, it’s… well actually it is the heat

Posted on by
1

There’s only one thing to do on a hot summer day in Prague. Yes, you guessed it; a day like today is made for sitting in a beer garden on an untrafficed street, well-situated to watch passers-by, ordering a tall, cool pivo, and opening up the ol’ laptop to get some work done. How much work I manage we shall have to wait and see; Prague on a warm day makes for some mighty fine people-wataching. Long women in short dresses; uptight businessmen refreshing their cologne; people with packs and guitar cases strapped to their backs; stroller pushers and shopping cart pullers; inept parallel parkers: guys with purses: a woman whose hair matches her magenta dress and makes it all look good; an old man with his glass of dark beer drifting past, his knobby white legs dangling out beneath his shorts — all these people and more have passed by in the time it took me to write that sentence.

I can see the Cheap Beer Place across the corner of the square from here, and the beer is definitely more expensive here, but the shade is better and there are far fewer cars on this street. It’s much more peaceful.

Until, as I wrote that, two things happened. The old electronic song from the seventies, “Popcorn with Butter” (I think it was called) came on the radio. This is a tune the ex had stuck in her head for the first two years I knew her. Dangerous stuff. Fortunately(?) the song has been completely drowned out by the arrival here on the patio of two more guests, one of whom is American and while not particularly loud is particularly annoying.

To be fair, most (but not all) of the things his is saying are not obnoxious at all, but my ability to turn off the conversations around me has atrophied in the time I’ve been here, since I can’t understand most of the things said around me anyway. Up to now I think most of the other patrons have been German. So now I have to dive in deep, maximum concentration, or put in the earphones. I really don’t want to lose the singing birds and snatches of czech conversation floating by, however.

And now, several minutes later, one of the other patrons has started whistling snatches of “Popcorn with Butter”. Učet, prosím!

Thanks!

Hockey night at the Little Café

Posted on by
19

A year ago I sat here at the Little Café Near Home to watch the Czechs skate against Canada for the world championship. All the tables were reserved last year, but there was room for me and my guests at the bar.

A year has passed, and the puck will drop in fifteen more minutes as the Czechs defend their title against the Swedes. The Café is surprisingly empty tonight; there are a couple more options in the neighborhood now, but more important is that the NHL was on strike last year. Last year the rosters for the various nations reflected the best those countries had to offer (with a couple of notable exceptions); it was like several dream teams playing against one another.

Even the czech regular season was something special last year, as the best of the local boys got to play for their home towns rather than for some city across the Atlantic. (On a side note, the NHL would do well to play more games earlier in the day; there are a lot of people over here jonesing for a chance to see their local heroes play, but when games start at 3 am, the audience is limited.)

This year the NHL playoffs are still going, so the talent available for the IIHF championship is diluted, but there is still something special about this tournament in the hearts of every Czech.

***

The first period is over and the Little Café is pretty full now; the only empty table is the one directly under the television. Alas, the Czechs gave up two goals in the first twenty minutes, and Sweden is very hard to play catch-up against. The good guys had their chances, but never put the puck in the net.

***

Oh, the second period. Oh, the horror. The Swedes owned the Czechs at both ends of the ice. The Czech passing in particular was poor — it seemed like the Swedes knew where the Czechs were going to send the puck before they did. As the period progressed the Swedes got more and more uneven chances. In the period the Czechs had four shots on goal, all from the outside.

There was one point where the crowd here got excited. The cameras found the Czech Prime Minister in the crowd, and the entire bar started jeering. Something about politicians using their positions to enrich their friends. Good thing that could never happen in the US.

***

There’s still quite a bit of time on the clock, but the game is over. The Swedes are playing protect the puck, while the Czechs are playing miss the opportunity. (I was typing while watching the game and looked down to see that I had written pooprtunity. I almost left it in.) It looks like the Swedes will add a world championship to their Olympic gold. Oh, well. There’s no denying that they brought the better team to the game tonight.

Thanks!

Thunder and Lightning

Posted on by
5

There aren’t very many thunderstorms here in Prague, so when one happens by it’s cause for celebration. I’m sitting at the Little Café Near Home right now, and outside the window the bottom has dropped out of the sky and the rain is dumping down.

I saw the first flashes off to the west, over Žižkov, and as the storm gained intensity the thunder went from a rumble to a crash. The street outside has become a river, and people are dashing into the café for shelter. They have to fight their way through the knot of people crowded under the tiny awning over the front step, and were there room I would be out there with the other spectators.

The window is open, however, and I’m ignoring the occasional raindrop on the electrical outlet in favor of the the clean, fresh rain-driven breeze. What’s the worst that can happen?

In the time it took English Loud Phone Talker (Elpht) to come in and polish off his Red Bull and espresso, the storm passed. The smell lingers, but not even distant rumbles are audible anymore.

Thanks!

Bar 100

Posted on by
1

A hundred bars in four countries over the course of a year and a half is hardly an astonishing accomplishment; I’m sure there are those who have dwarfed that figure without even trying. I’m not terribly motivated to inflate the number; there are times when weeks have elapsed without me undergoing the grand adventure of breaking in a new place. I have my principles, and I have places I belong.

For the record, this was not the first time I’d been to the beer garden at Letná (rhymes with met yah), but it was the first time since the Bars of the World Tour officially started.

Letná is a park on the hilltop on the steep side of the river. It is in full bloom right now, as the plants jump into summer with gusto. It is not just the vegetation that responds this way, the population of the city comes out in force on those first few beautiful days that tell you that summer is here, and mother nature isn’t just fooling you this time. As this is the Czech Republic, an important part of enjoying any day is having a nice beer.

The line at the beer window moves quickly, and even on crowded days there is room among the hundred-plus picnic tables arrayed along the hilltop, sheltered by flowering trees. The breeze brought with it a slight chill, and there was constant danger of flower petals falling in one’s beer, but those are the hazards one must overcome to survive in a place like this.

There are dogs everywhere, running and playing among the picnic tables, chasing one another and yapping happily. The number of cigarette butts on the ground around the tables is surprising, even for this city.

The view from up there is one of the best in Prague. (The best view is from the TV tower, because it is the only view that doesn’t have the TV tower in it. Remember the giant Iron babies?) The oldest part of the city lies below you, just across the Vltava, and you can see why this town is nicknamed the city of a hundred spires.

On the pathways people stream past: punk kids on skateboards; elderly couples with their little dogs; and long, graceful rollerbladers weaving between them. Many of those who stroll past are carrying beers, and that is no crime here. (Some of them would be surprised to learn it is a crime anywhere.)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a story that takes place on one of these benches. When I wrote the story it had been more than two years since I had been up there, but it was (almost) exactly as I remembered it. (I had forgotten about the plastic cups. There is another beer window in another hilltop park, where you leave a deposit and get to drink beer in a more civilized fashion. The story starts strong and builds an interesting character, but ends schmaltzy, as so many slice-of-life type stories do.

I did no writing while I was there; I write this from the Little Café Near Home, days after the fact. At the time, I did not think about the milestone that bar represented.

Unless an unlikely acting job materializes, I will be traveling soon to other countries to meet up with people who like going to bars. That is likely to inflate the numbers substantially.

Thanks!

Sometimes you just have to take a chance

Posted on by
Reply

I just ordered one of today’s lunch specials here at U Kormidla. My near-worthless dictionary translated Vepřový vrabec as “Pork sparrow”. I ignored the little voice in the back of my head saying “if there’s no translation for that part of the pig, you probably don’t want to eat it” and decided to give it a try.

As I finished typing the above my meal arrived, and I can confirm that nothing on my plate bears even a fleeting resemblance to a songbird. Between the chunks of fat there are some nice morsels of meat, however, and piled up with the pickled cabbage and dense potato dumplings, they are quite tasty.

Thanks!

Bum Day

Posted on by
Reply

Today I played a bum in movie you will never see.

I regret not getting a still shot of me fully bummed out. The makeup lady went to town on me — I think she was tired of just covering up blotches and blemishes on the other actors and was happy to have someone for whom her job was exactly the opposite. In the end my skin looked filthy (not just dirty, but that ground-in grime that extends several millimeters below the surface), I had a nasty-looking sore on my lip, and I had a black eye. Some vegetable oil for the hair, and I looked truly awful. Given time, I think she would have continued to add deformities and lesions, but this is the movie business, and there’s never enough time.

It was raining lightly when we made our way from the makeup room onto the streets of Prague. I shouldn’t have looked in the mirror after the makeup was done; I felt a bit self-conscious walking down the street. Doubly so when the first thing we did upon meeting up with the rest of the crew was duck into a little cafeteria-style restaurant for lunch. I did not look like the kind of guy you want in front you in the chow line. (Did I mention the big ketchup stain I put on my chest?)

Lunch finished, it was time to start acting. We made our way to a nearby park and selected a bench. They had forgotten the classic bottle-in-the-paper-bag prop, and so I was handed a plastic bottle of wine (if you take a bottle into most wine stores here, they will fill it for you). The wine was pretty good. We did a few takes. “I think you’ve found your calling,” Little John said. He meant it as a compliment. Actually, I might have been overdoing it a wee bit, but the crew was laughing (later in the day a shot was blown when the crew laughed as I scratched my ass), and I was in touch with my inner bum. I took a few lessons from the Miguel Martinez face book, moved with that careful deliberation that drunks use, and when I moved to the next park bench I sat very heavily.

The temperature was dropping. It was not just meandering in a downward direction, it had a heartfelt need to explore the basement. [As I write this, it is snowing.] We did the scene several times, using the camera from different angles, while I slowly emptied the bottle. For the off-the-tripod shots, the cameraman said he wasn’t able to hold the camera completely steadily after a while. But we carried on, for the art. I blew a couple of decent shots by saying “I could be you!” instead of “You could be me!” Technicalities. I had a lot more lines than I had been told about, and none of them stuck that well.

The rain continued. My shoes leak.

A woman passed by, then stopped on the corner and made a phone call. “Think she’s calling the cops?” one of the crew asked. Apparently this little venture had dispensed with some of the formalities. “Nah, she’s smilin'” another said. Our next location was right around the corner from the police station. There were cops everywhere, but none paid any attention to us at all. I didn’t think about it, I just continued to ply my craft.

That’s what actors say, right? “Ply my craft”? Because, well, I really don’t know crap about that stuff. Or about acting, for that matter. But being a bum on a park bench, that I can do. Being a guy who appears to be a bum wandering the street who is actually not a bum at all, I managed to pull off well enough to make them happy.

“You should have asked for more,” the assistant said as he paid me. Next time, I will.

Thanks!